Venice As The Polity Of Mercy

Venice, Polity of Mercy presents a history of the people of Venice from the mid-thirteenth century to the mid-seventeenth, and provides a new perspective on the changing relationship of their economic, political and religious life.

Venice, Polity of Mercy presents a history of the people of Venice from the mid-thirteenth century to the mid-seventeenth, and provides a new perspective on the changing relationship of their economic, political and religious life.

This study re-examines Venice’s political economy from the viewpoint of its ordinary people or popolani who, despite the commonly held view that they were excluded from political life by the nobility or nobili, actually organized and ran for themselves hundreds of corporations within the city-state. Mercy was central to this popolani’s Christian values and those who offered mercy to their fellow men and women in temporary hardship were investing in the expectation of reciprocity in their own time of need. Beginning by tracing a formative linking of religion, economy, and polity from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, Venice as the Polity of Mercy then chronicles the collapse of this triad during the struggles between church and state in the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, followed by a revitalizing reconnection of economy and polity within a different religious climate after the plague of 1630. As such, Richard Mackenney’s book offers up a revitalized image of Renaissance Venetian society as dynamic rather than static, as well as a new understanding of the city’s significance through a reconfiguration of its history and artwork.

The Merchant of Venice, is an intriguing drama of love, greed, and revenge. Believed to have been written in 1596, it is classified as a comedy, but while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps remembered more for its dramatic scenes, and especially for the character of Shylock, a vengeful Venetian moneylender. At its heart, the play contrasts the characters of Shylock, with the gracious, level-headed Portia, a wealthy young woman, besieged by suitors. One suitor in particular, Antonio, a merchant in Venice, must default on a large loan provided by Shylock, who insists on the enforcement of the binding contract that will cost the life of Antonio, inciting Portia to mount a memorable defense. In this richly plotted drama, Shylock, whom Shakespeare endowed with the depth and vitality of his greatest characters, is not alone in his villainy. In fact, the large cast of ambitious and scheming characters demonstrates in scene after scene, that honesty is a quality often strained where matters of love and money are concerned. In many of the play’s productions, Shylock gives such powerful expression to his alienation due to the hatred around him that, he emerges as the hero. The suspense and gravity of the play's main plot, along with its romance, have made The Merchant of Venice an audience favorite and one of the most studied and performed of Shakespeare's plays.

Offers new insights into the works of Machiavelli, Shakespeare and especially Hobbes by focusing on their use of rhetoric.

Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic explores the different aspects of political actions and experiences in late medieval and early modern Venice. The book challenges the idea that the city of Venice knew no political conflict and social contestation during the medieval and early modern periods. By examining popular politics in Venice as a range of acts of contestation and of constructive popular political participation, it contributes to the broader debate about premodern politics. The volume begins in the late fourteenth century, when the demographical and social changes resulting from the Black Death facilitated popular challenges to the ruling class’s power, and finishes in the late eighteenth century, when the French invasion brought an end to the Venetian Republic. It innovates Venetian studies by considering how ordinary Venetians were involved in politics, and how popular politics and contestation manifested themselves in this densely populated and diverse city. Together the chapters propose a more nuanced notion of political interactions and highlight the role that ordinary people played in shaping the city’s political configuration, as well as how the authorities monitored and punished contestation. Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic combines recent historiographical approaches to classic themes from political, social, economic, and religious Venetian history with contributions on gender, migration, and urban space. The volume will be essential reading for students of Venetian history, medieval and early modern Italy and Europe, political and social history.

Venice, one of the world's most storied cities, has a long and remarkable history, told here in its full scope from its founding in the early Middle Ages to the present day. A place whose fortunes and livelihoods have been shaped to a large degree by its relationship with water, Venice is seen in Dennis Romano's account as a terrestrial and maritime power, whose religious, social, architectural, economic, and political histories have been determined by its unique geography.

Is mercy more important than justice? Since antiquity, mercy has been regarded as a virtue. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, mercy had been exiled from political life. In this book, Malcolm Bull analyses and challenges the Enlightenment’s rejection of mercy. Political realism, Bull argues, demands recognition of the foundational role of mercy in society. If we are vulnerable to harm from others, we are in need of their mercy. By restoring the primacy of mercy over justice, we may constrain the powerful and release the agency of the powerless. An important contribution to political philosophy from an inventive thinker, On Mercy makes a persuasive case for returning this neglected virtue to the heart of political thought.